FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cleve Gray Paintings on Paper

November 19, 2020 — January 16, 2021 521 West 26th Street New York, NY

Loretta Howard Gallery in collaboration with Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art are pleased to announce an exhibition of Cleve Gray: Paintings on Paper from the Foundation. The works are on view at 521 West 26th Street in Chelsea and online from November 19th 2020 to January 16th 2021. They span from the Ceres Series in the 1960s to the Roman Walls of the 1970s and Calligraphic Abstractions of the 1980s. In this exhibition Cleve Gray’s dramatic body of works on paper trace over thirty years of production. These works touch upon the rigors of French modernism, the ethos of Abstract Expressionism and the meditative restraint of Chinese and Japanese scroll painting.

Cleve Gray (1918- 2004) grew up in New York City. He attended the Ethical Culture School, Phillips Academy Andover and Princeton University. At Princeton, he wrote his senior honor thesis on Yuan dynasty Chinese painting. Gray Served in World War II and remained in Paris after the war where he studied painting with Jacques Villon. After returning to New York he met and married Franccine du Plessix in 1952. The couple were at the center of intellectual life throughout their lives. In the 1960s Gray contributed regularly to Art in America and authored essays on Barnett Newman and David Smith whom he had also formed close friendships with. Francine, a renowned novelist and critic in her own right, was a staff reporter for The New Yorker.

Gray exhibited at the well known Betty Parsons Gallery and his work is in the collection of: The Guggenheim Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, The MoMA, the Wadsworth Atheneum, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, The Brooklyn Museum, The Smithsonian, The Jewish Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Art Museum Princeton University, Rose Art Museum, The Newark Museum, The Phillips Collection, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Yale University Art Gallery and most famously the Threnody murals at the Neuberger Museum.

For further reading: Weber, Nicholas Fox (1998) Cleve Gray. New York: Harry N. Abrams. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Buck, Robert, Hess, Thomas B. (1977). Cleve Gray: Paintings. Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Buck, Robert (1986) Cleve Gray Works on Paper 1940-1986, The Brooklyn Museum. Wilkin, Karen (2007) Cleve Gray: Man and Nature, Neuberger Museum of Art.

Loretta Howard Gallery specializes in classic Post War American art with an emphasis on artists who came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. Gallery artists are associated with major movements of the period including Abstract Expressionism, Op Art, Minimalism and Color Field. In addition, the gallery represents a select group of mid-career artists. The gallery presents exhibitions and advises private and corporate collections. Loretta Howard Gallery has been established in Chelsea since 2010.

Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art was founded in 2007 by Anders Wahlstedt, the gallery specializes in modern and contemporary American and European prints, drawings and photographs. The gallery is known for its extensive inventory of prints by Frank Stella and holds multiple exhibitions annually. The gallery has placed works in important institutions and major print collections. In 2018, the gallery relocated to Chelsea from the Upper East Side, where past exhibitions included names such as Joan Snyder, Frank Stella, Roy Decarava, Ellsworh Kelly, Mel Bochner, John Newman and Mel Kendrick.

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Anthony Torrano @lorettahowardgallery Gallery and Media Manager @wahlstedtart [email protected] 212-695-0164

Juliet Sloane Assistant to Director [email protected] 917-769-2263